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Dealing with specific human rights issues

Several human rights issues we face are particularly important, and challenging, for our operations to address. These include the need to respect the human rights of our employees, and to avoid violating rights when providing security, when people are resettled, and when we operate in politically sensitive countries.

Rights of employees

We respect our employees’ rights in line with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work - opens in new window.

These include:

freedom of association – employees can join a union wherever permitted by national law;
freedom from discrimination in the workplace – through equal opportunities.
freedom from forced labour – see below; and
the abolition of child labour – see below.

We also seek to create a satisfying and challenging place to work that encourages people to make best use of their talents, and provides them with flexible working conditions to meet their individual needs. Read more in the section on our people.

Resettlement

Kindergarten in resettlement village, Donglian

In all countries, people sometimes need to be moved to make room for new facilities, including energy infrastructure. Resettlement is usually carried out by governments. On our projects, we encourage the use of international standards, including consulting communities about resettlement plans and providing compensation to at least restore previous living standards. To construct the Nanhai petrochemicals complex in China, for example, more than 2,700 households were resettled to Chinese and World Bank standards. Our joint venture supported the government’s programme to provide higher quality housing for resettled villagers, and is continuing to help to find employment, build skills and create small businesses.

Read more on resettlement at the Nanhai project - opens in new window.
Read more about our approach to working with our neighbours and how we manage the social impacts of our projects and facilities.

Working in politically sensitive regions

The search for oil and gas can take energy companies to places with poor human rights records. This clearly presents challenges and requires making trade-offs. Refusing to operate opens the door for less-principled competitors. Staying risks being seen as complicit in a government’s practices. We decide our approach case-by-case, assessing the human rights risks faces by our operations systematically, using tools developed for us by the Danish Institute for Human Rights. We will only operate in places where we are able to follow our Business Principles.

Read more in our section on training, tools and guidelines.
Read more about our approach to working in politically sensitive regions.

Forced labour and child labour

We are committed not to exploit children, through direct employment or indirectly through joint ventures, contractors or suppliers. According to our annual internal questionnaire of senior country representatives, at the end of 2008, Shell companies in all countries where we operate had procedures to prevent child labour. In 98% of countries we also require our contractors to have a procedure in place to prevent child labour. The same questionnaire estimates that Shell companies in around 99% countries had procedures in place to prevent the use of forced labour.